The proposition will be tested here that religious belief has a direct effect on political attitudes and behavior; we regard religion, at least potentially, as a source of emotive belief with a strong impact on individual behavior, and propose to examine the relation between voting and the religious revivals of the nineteenth century. Our claim contrasts with the more usual explanations of the relation between religion and politics, which have asserted either that the relation is spurious, explained by variations between religious groups in socioeconomic status, or that the relation is due to group identification with a religious community rather than with a theology. Historians have claimed, although without adequate evidence, that the religious revivals of the early nineteenth century had an important influence on the attitudes of those who experienced them. Revivalist areas became disposed to support political movements such as abolition and temperance whose positions were related to the content of revival preaching. In addition, it is claimed that the revivals formed a political tradition affecting the voting behavior of later generations. These claims, which have not as yet been tested, will be examined using county-level data on the incidence of revivals, on social and economic structure, and on voting behavior. Using multiple regression procedures, I will test whether revivalism had a direct effect on voting behavior.